


Starfish

by tacotheshark



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacotheshark/pseuds/tacotheshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/14213.html?thread=76312965#t76312965">
    <i>Prompt:</i>
  </a>
</p><p> </p><p> Everyone is born with the name of their soulmate on their hand.</p><p>Mycroft doesn't find his soul mate until it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starfish

The name of Mycroft’s soul mate, which he is born with written on his hand just as everyone else is, is Greg. It isn’t the most common of names in the world, but it’s nowhere near obscure, so Mycroft doesn’t make much of an effort to find the boy, as he knows he is destined to meet with his Greg someday.

Eighteen years old, Mycroft sits in the kitchen to do schoolwork as well as to get away from his irritating younger brother. The television is on, just above muted and for nothing but background noise. Though, the voice of the newscaster easily catches Mycroft’s attention when she announces, “Gregory Lestrade, seventeen, was hit by a train this morning…”

Mycroft figured that this boy probably isn’t his Greg, he can’t be, but he finds himself interested nevertheless and turns the volume up.

The newscaster tells about Gregory Lestrade’s school and social life. His family is interviewed. They call him Greg, as opposed to Gregory, but Mycroft tries to see nothing of it.

A picture of the boy is displayed, and Mycroft decides that, if Greg Lestrade was his soul mate, he certainly wouldn’t mind it. He’s absolutely lovely, and Mycroft admits to himself that he may be a bit attracted to the boy. But this can’t be his Greg, his soul mate; he’s never met someone with a dead soul mate- that’s just not how it _works._

There’s a clip of the family, again, and this time the mother is saying to the camera, “Greg never met his soul mate, but if you’re out there, we’d love to meet you. Mycroft, is the name. Please, Mycroft, would you find us?”

The pencil Mycroft holds shakes in his hand and he releases it, letting it roll off the table and fall to the tile floor with an audible crack as it snaps in half. “ _God, no, NO,_ ” he mutters to himself because there’s no one around to hear him, and he buries his face in his hands.

Mycroft realizes then that he can’t look at his hands, can’t think about them. The right one, the one with the silver lettering, seems to sting and tingle and Mycroft just wants to be done with it, _damnit,_ wants to just chop it right off with one of those meat cleavers that he knows are in the kitchen drawer.

That would be much more of an inconvenience than it’s worth, he can see, so instead, in a fit of rage and tears and despair, he takes a knife from that drawer and stands by the counter as, with both hands shaking violently, he makes a slice horizontally across his right palm with his left hand, nerves lighting up, catching fire as the skin splits and blood begins to flow. He makes a vertical split next, then two diagonal to make an eight-sided asterisk that takes up his whole palm.

It hurts like the devil, it’s messier than Mycroft would care for, and Mummy is absolutely horrified when Mycroft shows her and asks her to drive him to the hospital, but it’s all worth it when his hand is stitched up, and around the starfish scar, there is no more silver lettering but specks of gray that look nothing like a name, nothing like a word at all.

As he grows older, Mycroft takes to carrying an umbrella everywhere he goes, just to have something to hold in his hand, to keep people from seeing and, therefore, asking.


End file.
